Halcyon

the tender theft

oh, here is the timer,

counting down to the new year,

clinking glasses and champagne

joy comes dressed in sadness.

my ash-crowned heart sighed;

at least I had silver-tongued sorrow.

pensive, wistful, and somber,

melancholic set the mood.

velvet-voiced ruin gifted me

a throne of thorns.

my list-made wishlist

lived on a liminal plateau.

my existence is an echo,

endlessly, effortlessly eroding.

I survived by stitching sense

into sparkling sorrow.

life bruises gently,

then...boldly.

the heart hardens, then hopes.

silence speaks in sentences.

forsworn and godforsaken

look at this blighted inclemency.

time teaches through tender thefts;

dreams drift, then drown,

then dare again.

imperiously magnanimous,

my hollow-haloed hope is ineffable.

life lingers between longing

and letting go.

I learned to live lightly.

we are stitched from seconds,

scarred by splashy seasons.

memories move like mist

merciless, mute, mystic.

faith flickers in fractures;

my soul searches for symmetry.

oh, see that starved-of-sun soul:

accursed, mercurial, desolate.

will ill-fated destiny change,

or will the stars remain stationary?

clap, then pat my back—

I survived yet another year.